Giants Schedule: 6 Games That Could Define Season

The New York Giants schedule has been revealed, and as grateful as fans are to finally know when the team will be playing its game, there was also a mixed reaction bordering more on the negative side regarding the difficulty of the 17-game slate.

That’s certainly understandable, not so much because the Giants are tied for the third-hardest schedule based on the opponents' 2022 win percentage, but more so given the structure of the schedule.

The Giants will play seven of their first ten games on the road and four of their five scheduled primetime games within the season's first five weeks.

But like always, head coach Brian Daboll is going to preach—constantly at that—the importance of staying in the moment. The schedule is what it is, and unless the Giants want to forfeit games out of protest because they don’t like what’s been set up for them, they will have to show up each week and play.

And for those who are fretting whether the Giants will have a better record than last year’s 9-7-1 mark and their first back-to-back playoff berths since the 2007-2008 seasons, well, that remains to be seen. As we see it, however, there are six games that, based on their outcome, could vastly define whether the Giants reach that goal.

Week 1: vs. Dallas

The schedule makers just couldn’t help themselves, could they? A Giants-Dallas primetime opener has always drawn well for the networks, and so rather than pit the Giants and Jets on Monday Night Football, the first game of which falls on September 11, the schedule makers decided to put the Jet-Bills in that slot and put the Giants and Cowboys as the first Sunday night game of the season.

The Cowboys happen to be one of the teams in the division with whom the Giants tried to close the talent gap this off-season, so we’ll get our first look at how successful they were right out of the chute.

But here’s the good news for a Giants team that has been swept by the Cowboys the last two seasons. Unlike last year when the coaches and players were still getting used to one another and the new systems put in place on offense and defense, things should be a lot smoother this coming year. The team retained much of its core on both sides of the ball and filled in some additional (and glaring) holes to increase its offense and defense speed.

In other words, on paper, the Giants should be a better team and a better matchup against the Cowboys, who, if they can defeat in the season opener, will set the tone for their 2023 season and give the Giants the early nod in the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Week 3: at San Francisco

The schedule makers giveth, and they taketh. The Giants got an early year break in that they’ll get back-to-back West Coast opponents on the road, so they don’t have to make the long cross-country flight twice more than necessary.

But there was a price to pay. After playing their Week 2 game at Arizona, they headed to the Bay area to face that fierce 49ers defense on Thursday night football.

Ouch!

But seriously, that defense, arguably one of the top three in the league based on last year’s play, will be another good litmus test to see how far the Giants offense has come from last year and how far it still has to go.

Week 4: Seattle

In the first of their two Monday night appearances, the Giants will get another early season test, this one more so for their defense. The Seahawks added a ton of speed on offense in the form of Ohio State rookie Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who joins a receiver corps featuring DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett.

The thought of facing that unit already has Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale losing sleep as he figures out how to nullify as much of that speed as possible.

The good news is that the Giants added both speed and physicality on the back end of their defense, so don’t be surprised if the Giants corners are asked to jam those Seahawks speedsters quite often to disrupt their route timing with quarterback Geno Smith.

Week 6: Buffalo

Besides the sentimental reasons to watch—head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen were instrumental in building the Bills foundation into the powerhouse the team currently is—the Bills present an overall good test for the Giants, who, if they want to be in the postseason discussion every year, need to beat the higher quality teams consistently.

That includes dealing with quarterback Josh Allen, whom Daboll was directly involved with transforming into the player he is today. Daboll probably also knows Allen's weaknesses as well as anyone out there, so his intel from his time with the Bills should hopefully prove useful for the Giants in their quest to make a statement in a game that will be played in primetime.

Week 8: Jets

No, this game's appearance on this list isn't for the reasons you think. The Giants handled an Aaron Rodgers-led team last year when they beat the Packers in London in an upset. And in their short regular-season series, the Giants hold the upper hand against the Jets, 8-6.

But this isn't your grandfather's Jets. That defense built by head coach Robert Saleh, which finished as a top-five unit last year, is arguably in the same ballpark as the 49ers' defense.

Assuming that defense stays healthy and doesn't regress, that makes it another good overall test for a Giants offense that has added speed and beefed up its offensive line to better protect quarterback Daniel Jones.

Week 16: Philadelphia

The Giants don't see the thorns in their side, er, Eagles, until Week 16 and Christmas Day.

Talk about a kick in the pants, right? But I digress.

The Eagles have bullied the Giants for the better part of over a decade now, and it hasn't mattered who was on the field or coaching the team. That bullying must stop because the two teams reside in the same division and because the Eagles, like it or not, are the defending division and conference champs that everyone will be aiming at this season.

As with Week 1 against Dallas, a Giants win will go a long way toward establishing just how far the team has come in its quest to be annual playoff contenders.

But if the Giants get blown out, as their starters did in the two (out of three) games played last year, that will serve as just another cold hard reminder of how much father the Giants have to go.

Final Thoughts

We can sit here and lament the schedule's structure all we want, but that's not what matters at the end of the day.

What matters is taking care of business against every team on the schedule, specifically the superior teams, which will ultimately reflect the level of play the Giants could see in the postseason--if they get there.

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